Rugby - Hands Off Black!

[Havak]

he is young - give him time.

The team is a small evolution from last year - Jason Robinson has gone, Cohen returning into the back three (since the autumn) with Lewsey (who now plays centre for his club) at fullback. And crucially Tindall missed last year entirely - we had all sorts of bad combos tried (remember Tait and Barkeley at IC?). Robinson is gambling on Tindall returning to form. It's a big gamble.

Ellis has usuped Dawson from the starting line up and Voyce and Goode have forced themselves onto the bench through form (but as we know Turnip does not use benches well - or at all!)

Wales - who knows. Lots of inuuries and suspensions - but it is England which raises their game a conservative 100% IMO. That should mean they still fall well short of the mark but you never know.

One thing I do know - if Wales lose Henson will rapidly be quoted somewhere claiming they would have won if only he had played.

[Havak]

A word of warning about your new coach Finbar - he took Bath to the top of the league in his first full season but subsequently, with the same players, has been in a relegation stuggle twice.

Is he the man to turn the Wallabies around - well given he plans to bring Foley in as forwards coach perhaps. Foley has learnt a lot in the seven years he has spent in England. Bath want compo for Foley though - hope the ARU has deep pockets.

[finbar]

Put it this way - who else was there apart from Knuckles? After Ewen McKenzie knocked back the job, that is. Ewen obviously decided it was a poisoned chalice. Which isn't to say that he was the man for the job. No one knows. He's had two years of S12 coaching under his belt. That was the bind the ARU created for themselves when they dumped Eddie - the alternatives were very thin on the ground. Yes, Bath are playing hard ball over M. Foley. Scotty Johnson hasn't been announced as the backs coach, either. I know he's had good offers in your neck of the woods so he's obviously using them to crank up his price. On the whole, the Knuckles appointment seems have gone down well in Oz. He should have had the job ten years ago but idiotic NSW rugby politics sank him. We shall see, we shall see. The best news is that forwards specialists like Andrew Blades and Alex Evans will be back in the frame. Blades fell out with Eddie and quit, and Alex Evans was involved back in Bob Dwyer's and R. McQueen's days.

[ravagon]

Morning chaps,

I'm back but (still) having a few, erm, 'technical' issues so I'll be around intermittently at best.

Just read, with more than a degree of amusement, about Msr Robinsons attempt to frame Wales as 'favourites' against England.
Wales are favourites at Twickenham?
I wonder what exactly this says about the aforementioned coaches prowess at having taken England to the dizzying heights of being underdogs at home against the mighty Welsh?
I wonder whether he has considered the implications of anybody viewing it as such?

Speaking of Welsh, whoever did the hatchet job on CoT did it rather well. The one Welshman with more than his fair share of common sense has utterly vanished from Other Games and the entirety of the Qt3 forums ...

I was going to scroll back a bit just to ascertain that I hadn't missed anything but I see an LDiCesare post in there somewhere so maybe I did afterall?

[finbar]

Scroll a bit further back, you'll find the odd insult hurled in your direction in your absence.

CoT did a runner from the entire site. Do a search and you'll find an OT thread he started in which he announced his farewell in the most cryptic fashion. In your absence, in his stead, we elected you our thread's resident Celt. Better for your self-esteem than being known as a Sandgroper, we thought. See how we're always thinking of your wellbeing?

[Havak]

Turnips makes Wales favourites, Ruddock makes England favourites, Scotland fancy beating France and Ireland are talking up Italy.

All in all it has been one of those weeks - welcome back.

To be fair to Connelly Finbar Bath is a poison chalice for any coach, and the guy has gained a lot of experience in France, Ireland and England. Foley gets good word of mouth - and Johnson is a man any side wants on their touchline, his passion is self evident (even if the hair is unfortunate!).

[finbar]

Frankly, I envy him the mop. If your forehead is as high as most retired props', I'm sure you do, too.

I've just discovered the England U21 match is on tonight. It's too late to ask you who to watch. I'll hazard a guess at what you would have suggested and just watch the Leicester players.

[LDiCesare]

I have tried to read the thread, but I seem to be struggling with my English: A handsome lock? I can't understand that. Looking for a translation, I only found this definiton: "Oxymoron".

[finbar]

But you missed the other statement. From ravagon. That you had posted in the thread in his absence, so there might be something worth reading. He's a Kiwi. Living in Western Australia. Western Australia is a bit like Siberia, only much hotter, but without Siberia's attractions.

I watched the U21 match. (1) It's terrifying to see such big lumps of meat at the age of - they claim - 20; (2) It was an entertaining enough match, loaded with the sort of errors you'd expect from youth; (3) the England lads seemed to have learned from their senior counterparts that no matter the set piece advantage, no matter the possession advantage, the match is always there to be lost; (4) the England lock - Croft, I think - looks like he has a future.

[LDiCesare]

A shame.

So Ireland beat Italy?
Let's check what happened during the match:
Italy scored a penalty, were often tackling late, got penalised, then managed their only try.
The Irish fought back, eventually giving the ball to Horgan 5 meters from the line. The big winger got tackled. Before falling, he did his usual knock-on, and then was pushed out of the field. On the subsequent lineout, the Irish score. In France, after a knock-on, we play a scrum, but I guess Mr Pearson knows the rules better than I do.
So 10-10. O'Driscoll's studs were probably quite muddy, so he cleans the a few times on blue jerseys. That's apparently legal. Pez gets sent off 10 minutes for a late tackle, this penalty is quite normal, since the Italians had been warned three times. Despite playing 14 vs 15, the Italians score a penalty and are now 13-10. But then the Irish winger receives a kicked ball, and lands in the in-goal. Try. The problem is the winger landed, but the ball didn't, since an Italian defender prevented the Irish from grounding the ball. So try again. That's 2 irish tries which shouldn't have happened because of bad refereeing.
But things could have been worse. The Italians could have dominated in the lineouts as they did in teh early game, except Flannery understood one thing: Your jumper is more likely to catch the ball if you don't throw straight. Of course, it's not something that can be penalised. Coming from the side is defeinitely bad play, but when a blue player catches the ball on his feet and gets penalised when there are 4 green falling around him on all sides because the referee can't see that it was the Italians player who had the ball...
Well, great match from the Italians. They lacked only a few things in order to win, the most prominent being a referee.

[finbar]

Yes, everything I've read about the game suggests the Irish were very lucky. So much for all the Irish commentators' glee after the recent Irish teams' HC performances.

The match wasn't shown here in Italy!

Luckily, though, the BBC channels aren't part of the English Sky package here at the house. I don't know why. Anyway, at least I wasn't able to watch the other match played yesterday.

[LDiCesare]

England crushed Wales, there's little to say about it.
France lost to Scotland. Not that Scotland won, but France really lost. They gave so many balls to the Scots it was terifying. Martin was nowhere to be seen during the first half, leaving lots of space for Blair to run through. Michalak was totally uninspired, and the centers didn't play well together. This can be explained by the fct Valbon had to replace Jauzion at the last moment, but it's not very convincing. Lievremont made a huge difference when he came in, but it was too late, and I'd rather have had him replace Martin rather than Bonnaire. A very bad match from the French overall. Not inspired when attacking, not enough support leading to many knock-ons and lost balls, which the Scots have always loved.

[finbar]

Mmmm. I saw some highlights of the match last night. The Scotland forwards seemed to be enjoying themselves, too. *sighs* It looks like I'm sans a 6N bandwagon this year.

[Havak]

You can always climb on the England bandwagon Finbar – but prepare for a roller coaster ride.

I love LDiCesare’s summary of the Ireland game. I wouldn’t disagree with too much of it to be honest. I am amazed Pearson has made the A list of referees to be honest.

That last Irish try was perhaps the most unfair moment Italy have suffered in any 6N. I may be old fashioned but the ball had to touch turf to register a try in my day.

Still messirs Hoennis and Kaplan have temporarily moved into my good books after the weekend.

Did you see the England A game Finbar? I hear Varndell scored four tries? Did the U21s manage to lose in the end then?

[finbar]

Originally posted by Havak
You can always climb on the England bandwagon Finbar – but prepare for a roller coaster ride.

Not if it were the last bandwagon on earth!

Did you see the England A game Finbar? I hear Varndell scored four tries? Did the U21s manage to lose in the end then?

No, the A match wasn't covered. The U21s won, thanks largely to some excellent work by the lock Croft. After good work throughout the game, he was involved in the try that sealed the result, making good ground down the sideline, fending off tacklers, before offloading to someone inside for the try. He has a future. The skipper, the #13 from Leicester, didn't do a whole lot, I have to say. I expected more.

EDIT. Ooops! I just discovered that Croft is a Leicester boy. Forget I spoke!